Sweaters

I made this natural colored sweater for Charmie a couple of months ago and finished construting it and adding the buttons in May.  You can see my post there for mor information on this sweater.  I had not however woven in the ends, and I didn't like how the buttons seemed to pull.  It just sat unfinished in my work room until today. . .

I decided after making Charmie's sweater that Mardie needed one too, but I didn't really want to try the same pattern.  I didn't like sewing all of the pieces together or picking up stitches for the area around the collar or the front closure.  While in Michigan, shopping with Patty I got a new pattern book called Sweaters for everyone by Mary Rich Goodwin www.onepieceknitting.com.  I didn't know that there was such a thing out there, but it was an answer to my delima.  I picked out the Saddle Shoulder Collared Cardigan size 1, checked my gauge and started knitting.  Two evenings later it was off the kneedles and today I went on a zipper finding mission.  The sweater pattern has button holes knit in, but I didn't want them after the first sweater.  I decided to try a zipper. 

It was at this point that I inspected Charmie's sweater and determined that I could sew the button holes closed and add a zipper to it too.  As you can see in the above picture the sweaters are not finished.  For Mardie's sweater the zipper insertion was pretty simple.  I used the sewing machine.  It's front "ribbing" isn't a true rib where the knit and purl stitch is alternated from stitch, instead they are alternated from row to row.  You achieve the look of ribbing but it's more stable.  For Charmie's sweater because the stitches were picked up and knit, it's a true ribbing where the stitches are alternated.  It had quite a bit of stretch, and after 5 failed attempts at pinning and machine sewing in the zipper I finally gave up and decided to sew it in by hand. 

I used Wendy Aran yarn for Mardie's sweater.  It's Navy with flects of white and brown in the strands of yarn.  It's a wool blend so unlike Charmie's 100% Merino wool sweater I can launder this a little easier.

Here they are with the zippers in:

I plan to make them coordinating hats mixing the yarns from both sweaters.  I'll post those as I make them!